Israeli National Security Policy for Dummies
The main Israeli security concept, the security triangle, includes three pillars: deterrence, intelligence warning, and battlefield decision.
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This is a guest essay written by Jason Crystal, a former IDF soldier with a Master’s in Homeland Security and Counterterrorism from Israel’s Reichman University.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Israeli national security decision-making process is mainly defined by Israel’s culture.
The persistent threat of aggression toward Israel has preoccupied politicians with a “thundering present” that has condemned legislators to rely on ad hoc solutions.1 Due to intense volatility in the Middle East, politicians have come to accept their inability to influence foreign relations and instead have adopted a “wait and see” approach and overreliance on improvisation, or “iltur” in Hebrew — improv in the army.2
In a politically polarized society like Israel, iltur “enables action without requiring clear articulation of objectives … and facilitates flexibility during times of crisis.” Correspondingly, the informal decision-making process and aversion to long term planning has become institutionalized to keep political orientation intentionally obscure to win elections and maintain coalitions.
Furthermore, Israel has no doctrinal publications on security affairs, such as Presidential Policy Directives or White Papers to formulate an overarching strategy. The lack of formal strategy at times poses serious risks for Israeli national security.
When the prime minister and cabinet are dysfunctional, Israel has no means of generating effective decisions on a national level because no effective policy-making forum exists. In the absence of clearly stated national directives, there is often confusion, ineffective policy implementation, and lack of accountability, as demonstrated during the Gaza Disengagement in 2005.
Jewish history has equally informed the development of Israeli national security. Israeli citizens, the majority of whom are Jewish, suffer from a “societal sense of insecurity” wrought by centuries of enslavement and systematic annihilation in the Diaspora that facilitates a psychosis known as the siege mentality.3
This complex, characterized by the conviction that Israel faces an inevitable existential threat, propagates an “obsession with survival” that lies at the heart of Israeli strategic planning and rationalizes Israel’s relentless quest for absolute security, often at the expense of other worthy endeavors.4
Absolute security is difficult, if not impossible, to attain given Israel’s lack of strategic depth and a host of other asymmetries, including unfavorable population demographics, a small economy, and low tolerance for casualties when compared to hostile neighboring nations.
In 1955, Israel’s first prime minister, then acting as its defense minister, David Ben-Gurion wrote: “We can never assume that we can deliver one final blow to the enemy that will be the last battle. … The situation for our enemies is the opposite.” Therefore, Israelis believe they are doomed to engage in indefinite rounds of violence.
This realization, along with Israel’s economic and territorial considerations, is paramount to the development of the main Israeli security concept, the security triangle. The three pillars of the security triangle include deterrence, intelligence warning, and battlefield decision.
The security triangle begins with deterrence, threats of force intended to dissuade enemies from attacking. Deterrence can be achieved in two ways, by denial or punishment. Deterrence by denial attempts to negate the benefits of enemy attacks by building up defensive measures, for example distributing gas masks to diminish the harm of a biological attack. Conversely, deterrence by punishment is an offensive measure, generally following an attack, which signifies deterrence has already failed.
When deterrence collapses, the next phase in the security triangle is to provide an early warning. Strangely, it is the responsibility of AMAN, a military intelligence unit in the IDF, to provide this warning to give the army more time to mobilize reserve forces and launch preventative strikes. This is unique because in most countries the State Department (i.e. foreign ministry) is responsible for this task and not the military.
However, when Israel was founded there were no formal diplomatic ties with neighboring countries, so its foreign ministry was not given a great deal of responsibility, and the military became much more powerful than other government agencies, occasionally to its own detriment.
Although AMAN accurately forecasted the 1967 Six-Day War and provided an early warning in time, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War the threat assessment was mismanaged due to false assumptions that ended up costing many lives.
The last corner of the security triangle concerns battlefield decisions.
“A state of decision is recognized as such when the enemy loses its ability to act effectively,” according to Israeli political scientists Uri Bar-Joseph.5
A definitive battlefield decision also helps rebuild deterrence and delay the next round of violence. Conclusive battlefield decisions are increasingly difficult to realize today, even when they are militarily feasible, because superpowers intervene beforehand to maintain stability by imposing ceasefires on the warring nations.
Moreover, a lack of strategic depth and a small economy restrict Israeli options on the battlefield. To counteract these constraints, Israel attempts to transfer warfare immediately into enemy territory and to end the fighting quickly.
Israel’s enemies on the other hand, attempt to wage long wars of attrition to their advantage. To thwart this potentially effective tactic, Israel embraces a culture of offensively minded military tacticians dubbed the cult of the offensive. Politicians and military leaders subscribe to the offensive dogma because they are keenly aware of Israel’s territorial vulnerabilities and finite resources.
Consequently, preemptive strikes that feature superior armor and air force brigades are almost always a strategic precondition. In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, with the arrival of ballistic missile threats to the Israeli homeland, the military was forced to include defensive strategies in their offensive tactics to protect citizens.
Although Israel has developed into one of the strongest and most modern military organizations in the world, its strength is dependent on foreign aid. Therefore, Israel is always extremely careful to operate under the umbrella of a superpower and to avoid direct conflict with them at all costs.
Failure to adhere to this policy can have potentially disastrous results. For example, during the War of Attrition against Egypt between 1967 and 1970, the Soviet Union sent over 10,000 soldiers to operate sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries, completely neutralizing Israel’s air superiority.
To further bolster her defense, Israel also attempts to form peripheral alliances with other countries in the Middle East that have mutual enemies, for example with Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
Due to historical reflections, Israel approaches alliances with skepticism. Accordingly, Israel has always attempted to maintain independent weapons manufacturing and a quantitative military edge by ensuring their technology and the quality of their officers and soldiers is always a step ahead of rival.
This advantage has been gradually eroded by arms sales from superpowers to potential foes, like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. To preserve the quantitative military edge, Israel pioneers the latest developments in radical military innovations, developments that change the nature of warfare.
Presently, radical military innovations are emerging in the field of information technology. In 1982 in the Bekaa Valley, the Israeli Air Force destroyed 19 SAM batteries and shot down more than 20 Soviet military fighter aircrafts without losing a single airplane. This battle illustrated the military’s improved arms coordination, capabilities for dissemination of target intelligence, command and control and precision fire, verifying their ability to terminate most observable threats.
Unfortunately, due to Israel’s reverence for the cult of the offensive and the inability of the general staff and strategic planning department to dedicate sufficient time and resources to analyzing the efficacy of Israel’s grand strategy, this military innovation was not implemented, except on a limited tactical basis, for decades.
Now that there is an understanding of Israel’s strategic culture, historical motivations, and the rationale behind the security concept, it is imperative to examine imminent threats.
While Israel was busy solidifying its radical military innovations advantages, Israel’s enemies responded by investing in their own military revolution that Israel refers to as stress survivability. These include building bunkers and tunnels, low signature forces like guerilla fighters and suicide bombers, development and attainment of trajectory ballistic weapons that are cheap and simple to operate, and media and propaganda efforts to undermine the internal and international legitimacy of Israel.
Although these innovations appear crude and inexpensive, they are still extremely hazardous to Israeli national security and must be addressed seriously.
Adding a fourth defensive pillar to the security triangle is one potential solution to address the probability of future rocket and missile threats against Israeli population centers that cannot be nullified offensively. Defensive measures, such as building protective fortifications like walls and fences and the proliferation of anti-ballistic missile systems like the Iron Dome are essential to protecting Israel’s citizens and infrastructure, especially ports and chemical manufacturers.
Regrettably, the security situation concerning the effective media campaigns being waged against Israel internationally is far more precarious and poses an even larger danger to Israel than rockets surrounding the nation. Increased sensitivity to collateral damage and the immediate dissemination of factual information to counteract propaganda will be crucial.
Despite the many challenges Israel faces, I am confident we will overcome these threats and prosper.
Freilich, C. (2006). “National Security Decision Making in Israel: Processes, Pathologies and Strengths.” Middle East Journal, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 635-663.
“Word of the Day Iltur: Improv in the Army.” Haaretz.
Adamsky, D. (2010). “The Culture of Military Innovation.” Stanford University Publishing, pp.110-111, 115-125.
Kobi, M. (2009). “Who Really Dictates What an Existential Threat Is? The Israeli Experience.” Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 687-713.
Bar-Joseph, U. (2005). “The Paradox of Israeli Power.” Survival, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 137-156.
 | A guest post by
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The best defense is a good offense. The best skill is knowing when to use it.
It is vital for Israel's survival.